According to the Governor's Highway Safety Association, as of August, 2014, 44 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands ban texting for all drivers. At least thirty-eight states and D.C. ban all cell phone use by novice drivers. Fourteen states, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands prohibit all drivers from using hand-held cell phones while driving. These fourteen states and protectorates have all made these prohibitions primary enforcement laws that permit law enforcement to cite individuals in violation of these laws without any other offenses. The NHTSA further estimates that if the compliance rate were increased to 90%, 5,536 fatalities and 132,670 injuries could be avoided.
A problem faced by all law enforcement officials is a diminished ability to ascertain whether the occupants of a moving vehicle are in compliance with state texting laws. Automobiles come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes and window tints that make texting monitoring very difficult. Often times, when a law enforcement officer approaches the driver of a vehicle pulled over for a traffic violation, the driver has already stopped any cellphone use and has even secreted away the phone—an easy task for a small, easily concealed device.
To Applicants' knowledge, apparatuses are under development that permit law enforcement officers to monitor cell phone use in moving vehicles by detecting the telltale radio wave frequencies emitted by cell phones. The devices in question are similar in appearance to radar detectors. An officer points the device toward a vehicle to ascertain whether a cell phone is being used in the vehicle. Whether or not the cell phone use detection device works as intended, there is a significant problem associated with such a device. The device is supposed to detect cell phone use generally, but cannot determine the exact location of the use in a vehicle. For example a backseat passenger using a cell phone would be detected the same as a driver using a cell phone. Because state laws differ considerably with respect to what kind of use can be made of a cell phone in a vehicle and by whom (driver and/or passenger), the device may lead to significant Fourth Amendment search and seizure problems for police forces. Unlawful use in one jurisdiction may be lawful in another and there is no current way to distinguish cell phone use by a driver versus use by a passenger. There is also no way currently to distinguish voice calls from texting events in real time.
There is no way to provide seat-specific cell phone use information other than through visual verification. There is no way to distinguish whether the use in a particular seat concerns a voice call or texting. No device, to the knowledge of the applicants, provides cell phone use status information outside the vehicle that is seat-specific. What is needed and desired is a system to monitor cell phone use by the driver and/or the other vehicle occupants from the exterior of a vehicle with sufficient detail to determine precisely where in the vehicle there is cell phone use activity. What also is needed and desired is a cell phone use detection system that can distinguish between voice calls and texting, and provide information about that use outside the subject vehicle.